Download Deep Learning - Our School's Leadership journey

For years, we have experienced trends and changes in education that we often
catch ourselves saying, “Oh we did that years ago.” The never-ending cycle of
change that sees some ‘early adopters’ drawn to the ‘new’, while others wait and
watch before jumping on board or hope that the hype will pass. Time and time
again, we hear in the media that the system is not working for every child and
quietly, behind the scenes, we tend to agree to some extent. As leaders in
education, we know that before we embark on any education revolution we need
to know our WHY.
Why are we looking for something different? What is lacking in our current
setting? Where is the gap for our students, their families and our teachers?
So where did it all begin for Coomera Rivers State School? Would you believe it
was with this visual. The image comes from Lee Jenkins who is the author of
"How to Create a Perfect School” and it conveys a very confronting message.
Lee used this visual to highlight the dramatic loss of enthusiasm children have for
school. The image was a confronting reality for us and we’re sure, for many
others. Our students arrive in Prep full of excitement and wonder for learning,
however, we did not see that same level of excitement, curiosity, wonder and
basic joy for learning in the years that followed. This caused us to pause and
reflect on our role in that decrease. What was happening and more importantly,
what was our role in this?
As a staffing team, we were working hard. We were handing out Rivers Rewards
like candy. We were teaching the rule of the week. We were reinforcing positive
behaviours in the classroom and on the playground. Unfortunately, our students
were still not accepting our bribes. We were exhausting ourselves in trying to
think of ways to motivate and engage our students to learn, however the image
forced us to reframe our thinking. We needed to be asking ourselves, how can
we maintain the motivation students were born with, rather than how do we
regain it?
We must also ask ourselves, if our role is to prepare students for ‘life’ why is it
that we find ourselves and the wider community saying words to the effect of,
“School just isn’t for everyone.” As educators, can we seriously live with that?
How can we ensure all of our learners are flourishing socially, emotionally and
academically? How can we morally allow students to fall through the gaps?
Finding your ‘why’ may come from looking at your suspension rates, detention
data, school absences and your D and E academic data, and questioning, does
this data reflect your idea of student success?
And more importantly, how does it sit with you? It was this level of reflection
that had us seeking a better path and that path for us, was Deep Learning.
Back in 2018, the School Council asked us to consider an alternative
pedagogy to engage and promote learning for our students. Throughout
2018, the Leaders of Learning, scanned and assessed the educational
landscape to research pedagogical approaches which would suit our
school, our students, our community and our world. Throughout 2019, we
piloted several of the approaches on offer. For example, Genius Hour,
Challenge Based Learning, Passion Projects, Project- Based Learning and
Inquiry Learning. These were piloted by numerous teachers across the
school. We were all looking for that ‘something’.
However, it was the introduction to Deep Learning that we were drawn to.
Key stakeholders consisting of the principal, deputies and HODs conducted
a weekly book study with Fullan, Quinn and McEachen’s book, “Deep
Learning: Engage the World ~ Change the World”. This was a text that
resonated with all of us from front to back and it formed the foundation of
our understanding of how we deepen learning for all our students.
The book study came at a time when we reviewing our current reality to our
existing pedagogical framework and we were somewhat surprised to find that
many pedagogical approaches were already living and breathing within our
setting. We believe that this is one of the reasons why our ‘buy-in’ from staff and
our ultimate position has been so successful. It was the inclusion of learning
partnerships and the 6 Cs where we really saw an opportunity to extend ourselves
and our students.
Our thematic goal: Good at learning: Good at life became our rally cry.
At the end of 2019, we primed our staff with our current reality against our
ultimate goal, asking them to reflect on why they put their hand on the school
gate each morning. We asked teachers what constituted success for our students
and were we achieving it? A glance at our data, and to be fair, it wasn’t bad, but it
was agreed by all, we were failing some of our students and we couldn’t live with
it. This is when we introduced the essence of ‘Deep Learning’ to all staff. Never
did the leadership team espouse that we were experts but we were ready to learn
alongside our teachers. It was a matter of launching and learning together.
We empowered the staff to make their own decision after our whole school pitch.
The Deep Learning framework and our reasoning behind this direction obviously
resonated with staff as we came into 2020 with 32 teachers (42% of our teaching
staff) placing an EOI to be part of Deep Learning Phase 1. While we were strongly
advised to ‘hasten slowly’, we also maintained the position that we would never
say no to anyone who submitted an EOI.
These early adopters were supported through a fortnightly PLT that served the
purpose of building a common language of the 6C’s and what they looked like,
felt like and sounded like within our pedagogical framework. We started with
building capacity in students and teachers in identifying and creating
opportunities to develop the competency of ‘Character’ within existing units and
lessons.’
Another reason why we believe that our staff were well positioned to launch into
Deep Learning is because we had spent the years prior doing a lot of work around
placing the learning first. Much of our work was inspired by Bruce Jepson and his
team from Te Akau ki Papamoa School in New Zealand. The premise of this work
places emphasis on the student and their connection to their community at the
centre.
For us at CRSS, ‘Know Me Before You Teach Me’ is really about giving teachers
the time, space and permission to push aside the academic aspects of the
curriculum so they can invest time and energy into each and every student. Our
belief is that a relationship built on mutual respect, trust and connection must
exist between student and teacher, student and student, teacher and family,
teacher and community, family and community in order for a child to flourish and
thrive with learning.
We also began using the power of social media as a way to publicly communicate
to our community the work we were doing.
It was interesting to note that the non-conventional activities were the ones that
received the most likes and comments. Students collaboratively building garden
sheds and celebrating their contributions to community charity organisations.
This immediate feedback from our families was reaffirming that they were
appreciating the direction we are taking.
At the end of 2020, we asked all staff to complete the Deep Learning Schools
Conditions Rubric. This enabled us to measure our achievements and identify our
next steps. This information was used to inform our Explicit Improvement
Agenda - all staff were involved in the creation of this document over a three
month period. Together, we identified measures of success for each of the 5
target areas. This was our first big step at creating what would be our agreed
practices for our whole school. Our early adopters were soaring, it was time to
get everyone on board.
So while to embed deep learning is one of the areas of work within our
Explicit Improvement Agenda, what we had essentially created was a
bench mark for all teachers. 2020 saw a whole school focus on unpacking
the competency of Character and building this in to our weekly,
myConnections lessons. These myConnections lessons are similar to a
school’s PBL Rule of the Week Focus however, at Coomera Rivers, we
were focused on students’ connections to ‘Knowing myself, knowing and
connecting to others, and knowing and connecting to my world.’ The
Character progression was unpacked during weekly PLTs and teachers’
commitments to actions saw us creating a whole school language and
understanding. Teachers were then looking for opportunities within existing
units of work and single lessons, to discuss student’s character
development. We had whole school momentum!
If we truly want our students to be Good at Learning and Good at Life, then we
also need to challenge the data we were collecting on our students. If we were
teaching students about being a person of good character and if we truly valued
it, then we should be measuring and celebrating their progress too.
This idea made us reflect on what were the conversations we wanted to have
around our students. Constantly analysing A-E data (or similar data) term after
term does not measure progress or learner behaviour, which is just, if not more,
important in becoming ‘Good at Learning ~ Good at Life.’
This focus has seen the creation was our P-2 and 3-6 Character Continua. These
continuums now have the language of the character and collaboration
progressions embedded and teachers use these to help formulate their overall
comments around behaviour on report cards. Students’ behaviour and learner
goals also come directly from these continuums and a reflection ‘Goal-Setting’
week is built into our myConnections term overview.
So while the advice for us has always been to ‘hasten slowly’, our advice to other
leadership teams is take a leap of faith, knowing your ‘purpose’. If our ultimate
goal for our students is to be a courageous learner, then we must be too.
Opportunities to share and celebrate as a staff are invaluable. Our Curriculum
News, PLTs, Weekly Notes and communication to our community all reflect what
we value. These help build momentum and enthusiasm.
Building partnerships with other schools has also been invaluable. Book studies
via Teams meetings where teachers and leadership staff are excited about what
they’re learning and exploring best practice together, only serves to value the
work even further. Ensuring PD and APDPs are linked to the school’s EIA have
also proven to be invaluable strategies to embed Deep Learning even further.
Our journey is far from easy - nothing worth doing in life ever is. If we want a
different outcome for students, then we cannot wait for the system to change.
We are the system and the change lesson here is that we need to change the
culture of learning.